We've never had this kind of situation during modern times in a country immediately adjacent to US borders. I honestly can not see the US doing nothing , especially as time goes on.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Mexico is going to become the 51st state, but I wouldn't be surprised if things deteriorated enough in Mexico that the U.S. might decide to step in and establish a western hemisphere DMZ as a buffer zone.

Even if attacking Mexico never gets off the ground it doesn't mean that people aren't going to try to get us to attack, there's always going to be those sorts. I wanna say this idea has already been kicked around by some neocons and their ilk, having a tangible reason to implement such insanity is what they've been lacking. I'm putting money on scare tactics utilizing the "new" threat of a flood of drugs from Mexico to rally up voter support.

I'm not really thinking that this is going to be a "make or break" issue this election but Assuming things keep up this way over the next 4-5 years you can bet we're going to be hearing shit-tons about this come 2016.

******************************************************************************
On a related note, they now smuggle stuff up from Columbia to Mexico and beyond via Kevlar hulled submarine reminiscent of Sputnik era Soviet tech, only less lethal to the operator.
_________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

Bear in mind that if the US annexes Mexico, all of Mexico's problems--endemic corruption, crushing poverty, vicious drug cartels--would become our problems, and we would have to integrate into the United States the 15th largest country on Earth and a very different culture from our own. Witness the popularity of measures like SB 1070 and how easy it is to whip up voter ire against the guys who can't speak English and hang out at strip malls all day looking for odd jobs, and it's hard to see how anyone could rally the voters to support the annexation of Mexico and the inclusion of millions more of those workers into this country. Then consider how successful we've been at stopping the drug trade and public corruption in our country; if we annexed Mexico, our political and judicial systems would be taking on problems that are worse by a couple orders of magnitude.

Tenatively, I'm going to say that one of the annexation potentials that darq mentioned isn't that outlandish: the creation of a 'buffer zone.'

This is something that could, eventually happen, if everything goes completely shitfucked in mexico and the government becomes effectively powerless in the northern regions, and Americans get way too jittery about Zeta-style influence creeping across the border. And, for sure, we can be spurred to act rather fast with this kind of shit staring us right in the face.

It's a worst-case scenario, for sure. It's only something you would see start to happen if the military campaign completely fails over time and the northern regions literally lose all government control. This is not impossible, but I'm not going to idly speculate on probability.

The way you would know it was happening is if the US and Mexico started talking about a "joint venture" to help stabilize the region and make it safe again for legitimate trade. Mexico would want to call it a joint venture to save face, and we would play along.

It's such an outward hypothetical possibility though that it's probably way more important to talk about what's really happening in the spectrum of possibilities before that.

i hear a lot about this, but then i'm about 30 miles from the mexican border. so we hear lots of stories about bodies and firefights and of course the tunnels that keep getting dug under the border fences - quite sophisticated tunnels, which can be used for smuggling people, but were of course built to smuggle drugs.

last year we had a proposition to legalized marijuana, and one of the arguments in favor was that doing so would undercut the cartels by reducing the money they got from marijuana. but there were some experts who doubted it would have much of an effect, since the cartels are also making tons of money on other drugs, like cocaine and heroin. the prop failed, in any event.

but we seriously need to rethink our drug policy, since the war on drugs is a clear failure. plus california (at least) is spending vast sums of money imprisoning people for pretty minor drug crimes. there was another proposition, maybe 6 or 8 years ago that i thought passed - it would have put an effort into getting first-time drug offenders into rehab - but my recollection is, the bush administration had fits, and tried to stop it - in any event, what that prop. promised sure isn't happening.

there is no buffer between the u.s. and mexico, unless you count the border fence, and that is a) not complete and 2) still pretty porous. but so far the cartels have stayed in mexico - probably because as sam said at the start, it's a failed state, and there is no one there who can really stop them. why go to the trouble of coming to the u.s., when they've got what they want in mexico?

and as has been said - no way the u.s. is going to annex mexico. too many politicians have spent too much time bloviating about illegal-immigrant-wetback-mexicans coming up here to take our jobs and glut our emergency rooms and live off our welfare - all of which would be utterly legal, if our borders shifted south. their constituents would draw and quarter them at the suggestion. and for now, the problem is still south of the border. no piles of bodies in jacumba or shootouts in the streets of san ysidro.

you can grow marijuana pretty much anywhere - a lot of medical mj is grown indoors, in temperature-controlled setups with growlights, so they can crop continuously; that would just spread, should it be legalized, or probably even just decriminalized.

i don't know what will happen with the cartels. prohibition in the u.s. did kick off some major criminal organizations, but my sense is that most of them didn't do too much in the way of diversification, so when alcohol became legal again, they really were badly hit. the cartels have a much broader base - even if marijuana is legalized, that's not going to happen with cocaine and heroin and meth, not for the foreseeable future. so they will still be making big bucks. they are killing each other off at a great rate, as the mobs did in the u.s. - but they have a much broader recruitment policy than the mobs ever did, so there doesn't seem much chance that they will actually wiped each other out. capone, and some like him, were eventually stopped by the legal system - but mexico is just swamped. they have so many bodies piling up at such a rate that it's about all they can do to identify them, let alone actually build any sort of legal case against the killers - and the killers, as reported, are more than happy to execute anyone who even makes noises about stopping them, and their wives and kids and probably even the family dog, just to make the point. there are no melvin purvises or eliot nesses in mexico._________________aka: neverscared!

i called a guy I know and he said this was all according to plan so none of you need to worry. "it's still 2017 baby! Spring Break and The Apocalypse happening at the same place at the same time! "_________________

Legalization of certain drugs might cut some of the cartels income, but by no means all of it. We quite literally can't afford to have a failed state right next door to us.

Cartels are taking their violence over the border many times now and U.S. Law enforcement personnel are not safe. Even in our drug ops with the coast guard we were instructed to keep their identities to ourselves for their safety. These people have the money and man power to design functional submarines for drug smuggling for christ's sake.

Not long ago a young student friend of mine turned down a trip to mexico with one of her friends. Her friend went missing from a bus and hasn't been seen since.

I'm not sure what the best solution is here. I just know we need to do something it's not just Mexico's problem and it never really was. The Cartels don't view our government as any more of a threat than the Mexican government they have so thoroughly thwarted. Fighting them directly, even assuming it didn't violate multiple treaties our own laws and international law, would result in us paying both sides. Pay for the soldiers and continued funding from sales in the states. We'd actually drive up prices and increase their profits. We need something creative to break the economic cycle they run on, and we need to help the government there provide options for young people that don't involve hoplessness. No we aren't the world police, but this is a direct threat to our own people. Beyond that, Mexico, as a country, has great potential if it could get past institutionalized corruption. The people there certainly deserve better. Having stable effectively functioning neighbors on both borders would be nice for us as well._________________"Life is tough, but it's tougher when you're stupid" ~ SGT John Stryker from "Sands of Iwo Jima".

The US can create a buffer zone by encouraging southern states to break from the Union.

Only if Florida remains part of the US -- Disney World and what not is there. Oh an Louisiana too. Losing New Orleans would suck. Texas would also become a free state in the deal._________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

Yes move the border, that way we have the same problem in a different place... That and one even bigger problem looms. Texas is insufferable enough about their independent streak without actually making them idependent again.

I swear by all that is holy if one more Texan mentions that Texas was an indepent republic before voluntarily merging with the Union in the first minute and a half of the conversation I will vomit all over them and their entire state. I'm an old man with a grumpy disposition and a sour stomach I can pull it off._________________"Life is tough, but it's tougher when you're stupid" ~ SGT John Stryker from "Sands of Iwo Jima".

Joined: 09 Jul 2006Posts: 9702Location: I have to be somewhere? ::runs around frantically::

Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 6:00 pm Post subject:

LD! wrote:

But you could start deporting anyone with a Texas accent.

_________________Before God created Las he pondered on all the aspects a woman might have, he considered which ones would look good super-inflated and which ones to leave alone.
After much deliberation he gave her a giant comfort zone. - Michael